


Through the Looking Glass

by Thanathan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, M/M, No beta we die like mne, Relationship Study, Sort Of, everyone else is mentioned - Freeform, idk man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29948304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thanathan/pseuds/Thanathan
Summary: Just Sakura going on a rant at people talking smack about her team mates.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	Through the Looking Glass

Sakura slams her cup down hard enough for the wood underneath to creak, splinters digging into her glove yet unable to penetrate the sturdy cloth. She glares at the man across the bar, noting with vicious satisfaction that the unsavoury words he’s been spouting about her former sensei and her teammate are dying in his throat as the colour drains from his face.

_(A chūnin she knows lives with a woman nine years his senior. But that’s all right because they are thirty-four and forty-three, not eighteen and thirty-two.)_

_(Hypocrites.)_

“Sakura-san.”

She lets it linger for another second, making sure the man understands the _pain_ she promises him with her eyes before letting her gaze slide back to her remaining teammates. Despite the calmness in his voice, Sai has a scowl on his pale face, the pencil in his hands hovering above his sketchbook in perfect stillness. Sasuke-kun is silent, but his visible eye is locked onto the very same man, a bloody tempest swirling in its depth, ready to break the surface. Huffing, she relinquishes her hold on her cup, uncurling her fingers one by one before she ends up breaking yet another one.

If Yamato-taichō was here instead of being out on a mission, he would do that thing with his face that made everyone in the vicinity shut up and run for the hills. It’s a much cleaner way of showing Team Seven’s support than whatever she or Sai or Sasuke-kun had in mind. Tsunade-sama hates having to reprimand them for property damage. Kakashi-sensei even more so.

They’ve played this game more than once in the past months, and although the _incidents_ are slowly dropping in frequency, they haven’t lost any of their _intensity_.

Because how dare they. How dare these people sneer at them, after everything Kakashi-sensei and Naruto have done for the village?

 _How dare they_ mock their Hokage and their hero? _Her team?_

Are they really this _blind_?

 _(She doesn’t want to think how, once upon a time, she would have been just as blind. And although she was late_ – _almost_ too _late_ – _she opened her eyes and looked._ Looked _.)_

_(She wasn’t sure what she’d see, but beyond the lazy smiles and boisterous orange, she saw a loneliness she was still only beginning to understand and she hopes she never will.)_

_(Not like that.)_

She can ignore the civilians – used to shinobi as they may be, they rarely see more than the surface of what this life truly entails. It isn’t even that there is a lot of opposition, the vast majority of the populace either uncaring or supportive – but to hear other ninja slighting two people who came close enough to her to be a second family?

It grates on her nerves, makes her grit and grind her teeth as she clenches her fists hard enough for her knuckles to crack.

Because how can they be so blind?

How can they be so focussed on things like numbers and ranks in the face of what is truly there, truly important?

How can they not _see_ what’s so glaringly, _stupidly_ obvious right in front of them? They are supposed to be ninja; whatever happened to _look underneath the underneath_?

Sure, hardly anyone who didn’t work with or under Kakashi-sensei during his ANBU days truly knew of the darkness that has nipped at his heels from the day he was born.

Sakura saw the reports; only glimpses at first, secretly stolen whenever Tsunade-sama sent her to the archives. Then she was bold enough to take a few minutes, read through a yellowed scroll here and there with her trembling fingers pressed against her mouth and a sharp sting behind her eyes.

Of course, she got the gist of it over time, during the war in particular _– Yondaime-sama, Rin,_ Obito _–_ and as startling as the realisations were then, she has since learnt that they were only a fraction of her former teacher’s past. A centrepiece, no doubt, but not even close to the whole picture.

She wondered how Sandaime-sama didn’t see it. Asked herself through the crushing concern and misplaced grief how he was able to send Kakashi-sensei, even younger than than she is now, on one gruelling mission after another, apparently never bothering to stop and ask how it came that almost every single one of those missions ended in extended bed rest, if not weeks-long hospital stays.

Usually cut short, because Kakashi-sensei was a genius and too valuable on the field or with his arm stuck in another person’s ribcage to be given the time to heal.

Apparently, efficiency and kill potential meant more to the village’s leaders from over a decade ago than keeping their shinobi relatively sane and healthy.

_(Sakura is smart enough to see that Kakashi-sensei didn’t disagree, back then.)_

_(But nowadays, he’s given her all but a blank cheque to change whatever she deemed necessary with Konoha’s health system, along with a smile and an odd look in his eyes.)_

_(All the more reason for her to do her utmost best.)_

She found the file on what happened with his father, the pieces from their mission to rescue the Kazekage finally aligning and clicking into place, and when she saw him later that day, she decided _to hell_ with his carefully-maintained distance and threw her arms around his torso.

When he went stiff under her touch she wondered for a hot second if he’d just _shunshin_ away, leaving her to stumble forward with her arms full of air, or forcefully pry her off. When slowly, very slowly, a hand came to rest on her head, a low chuckle rumbling through the chest her cheek pressed against, she decided that this was long overdue.

_(She looked up at him then, smiled and said, “Thank you, sensei. For everything.”)_

_(In hindsight, she should’ve done so a long time ago.)_

And Naruto –

She did him wrong so many times when she was younger. Hit him and ignored him and scoffed at him, completely undeserving of her scorn. She isn’t petty enough to hate who she used to be, but she is sure glad that she is someone else now.

Because Naruto is her teammate, her _friend,_ and sometimes, it feels as if he knows her better than her own parents do. And in turn, she likes to think that she knows him quite well as well.

At least well enough to know that what he and Kakashi-sensei found after the war is the best thing that could have happened to either of them.

Because Kakashi-sensei is a man who loved and lost _everything_.

Who tried time and time again to stay distant and aloof only to succumb to his very nature. Because Kakashi-sensei is kind and gentle underneath the eccentric exterior, someone who wasn’t born to be lonely no matter how well he wears it. Someone who is fiercely protective of the ones close to him and watching them die, one after another –

Really, _who else_ could be a better match for Hatake Kakashi than a man who laughed even in the face of death only to turn around and _make it_?

And Naruto grew up so lonely, craving with every fibre of his being for someone, _anyone_ to stand with him. To assure him that he wasn’t a monster, that he was a person and deserved to be treated with the same kindness as everyone else. Who just wanted to be acknowledged as everyone turned their backs on him.

And who was better to fill that role than the man who always, _always_ returns?

From what she gleaned off the old records, Kakashi-sensei should have been dead ten times over by the time he was fifteen. Gruesome missions, even more gruesome injuries but somehow, throughout it all – and she has a sickening hunch that his survival wasn’t exactly owed to his tenacity and desire to ensure it – he kept on surviving and returning to the village, to the few people he wasn’t able to keep from appreciating his existence.

Sure, things are different now. The entire village loves Naruto and as their Hokage, Kakashi-sensei doesn’t go on any missions of his own anymore, not to mention the lasting peace between them and the other nations.

But that doesn’t change who they are, and they are both people in desperate need of someone who isn’t going to slip away like the wisps of their nightmares, so they could finally, _finally_ truly heal.

_(Because whether they had a choice in the matter or not, they always did.)_

_(Even after death sank its claws into their chests and_ squeezed _.)_

_(They always survived.)_

The old wounds might have scabbed over but the scars are still there. She knows Naruto still fears, sometimes, that he’d wake up and leave his house only to find himself faced with those hate-filled stares yet again, realising that everything was just a dream. 

And even if she doesn’t have the same insight into Kakashi-sensei’s head, hasn’t found him knocking on her door in the middle of the night, eyes shining with an almost primal need to hear that _no, it’s not a dream, all of this is_ real _,_ she has no doubt that he, too, was still plagued by what he considered past failures. 

She’s seen the lights illuminating the Hokage tower late into the night often enough.

Kakashi-sensei and Naruto aren’t perfect for each other, no. Sakura is too old now to believe in fairy tales.

She hears the exasperated sighs and the hushed arguments. Sees the aggrieved frowns and agitated gestures.

She doesn’t need to hear about Naruto destroying a training ground with Kiba’s help, venting his anger and frustration so he could think clearly again. She doesn’t need to see Kakashi strolling around the village with Gai-sensei, asking for advice so he can understand where they went wrong that morning so he can go home and fix it.

But they are what each of them wants, what they _need_ , and isn’t that all that matters?

**Author's Note:**

> Not proofread or edited. This fuelled my insomnia for a few days so I had to get it out of my system.
> 
> Haven't written for Naruto in almost a decade, lol. Still undecided on whether I like Sakura or not.
> 
> If you haven't picked up on it already, I am not a new writer. I have other projects under other names which I would like to keep separate from each other. Either way, whatever Kakashi/Naruto comes to my brain, refusing to leave, will make it here at one point or another.


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